In the month of June 1816, a store-ship brought out a marble bust of young Napoleon: Sir Hudson Lowe ordered the bust to be thrown into the sea. This he has since denied; but we have the fact judicially attested; for the act disgusted Lady Malcolm, who was still at St. Helena, as well as all the captains of store-ships that were on the island.
Since that time, in February last, the Cambridge store-ship brought out two prints of young Napoleon, which had been bought in London: Sir Hudson Lowe purchased them under pretence of presenting them to the Father, and when the officers heard, a month afterwards, that it was, on the contrary, to keep them from him, they could not contain their indignation that an Englishman should have been guilty of such conduct.
The British Government cannot be ignorant of all these proceedings. If what the Emperor said here to Lord Amherst has been repeated in London, if Captain Poppleton, whom you know, and who was the officer on duty during two years, has been questioned, if Colonel Nichols of the 66th regiment, and Colonel Fehrzen of the 53d regiment have been questioned, as well as many others, it must be known to what unworthy treatment we are exposed here.
If there be in Europe some enemies of the Emperor, who would have approved the conduct of the British Government if they had taken away Napoleon’s life, openly and publicly, on board of the Bellerophon, there is not one who will not some day cover with imprecations and opprobrium and disown those who adopt such cowardly means to attain that end.
How are we to reconcile all this with what you write to me? perhaps by the supposition of a correspondence filled with falsehoods, and artfully managed. However, we on our side have for the last two years complained openly and loudly; and the criminal conduct pursued here must be known in London,
You will be surprised to hear me speak of the French, Austrian, and Russian Commissioners who are here. We never saw them during the time you were with us, and to this day they have not yet seen the Emperor nor called upon us. But we have frequently met them on the roads within our limits, which is a way of seeing each other sufficiently ridiculous. Though the Emperor does not acknowledge them as Commissioners, he has never refused to receive them as strangers.
With respect to the Governor, the Emperor has not seen him since the month of April, 1816: you are aware of the reasons which induced him not to receive him, after the insults which the Governor had offered him.
This being the case, if Sir Hudson Lowe seeks to be revenged, such a proceeding, though inconsistent with a generous mind, can be easily explained. But how can Government have continued, during two years, to repose its confidence in a man who has so strangely abused it?
I therefore earnestly request you, in the Emperor’s name, to inform his family and relations of the situation in which he is placed; and peremptorily to require that none of them will encrease his sufferings by coming to share in them.
You tell us that the English Government has subscribed for us to the Morning Chronicle; but the same thing happens with this paper as with the Times; it is sent to us after those numbers which it is thought proper to conceal from us have been previously withdrawn. Thus we have had some numbers of February and some of March, but all those that it was their pleasure to withdraw have never been sent to us. Not to have a regular series of a newspaper is worse than to have none.